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CORPORAL,
All-Night Love Encounter,
A Poem in Four Parts
Corporal, he saw time,
He saw thirty seconds, he saw temporal instance,
He saw the spin, the vortex, the end point,
Whereat all disappeared, no fiction,
No imaginary construct, the vanishing, real,
It was the same as any other solid in existence.
He was turning the corner into the living room,
When he noticed the couch become clear light,
Transparent, a configuration of lines,
Blue lines on white background, and at the bottom,
Right hand corner a lined, rectangular box spelled out
Blanks to be composed at latter time,
They read NAME, ADDRESS, and PROJECT TITLE.
Corporal seemed to slip into more familiar space;
He lay upon the bed on his back,
He sat up. He bent forwards and grasped his toes.
He was smarting.
He was hurting all over! He suffered!
It seemed every muscle, every joint ached.
My! What a plethora of subjects crossed his mind.
Corporal, he saw every crack and crevice of heaven.
He rolled up, brought knees to chest, and then white light,
He caught such gigantic power,
That night he broke the bubble and went beyond,
He went way beyond the stars, he walked a field,
The wheat had grown up to his waist,
He ran full speed, and he could see himself,
He could see himself stark, dark figure in the distance,
While he ran, he ran, breakneck, towards the horizon,
Horizon of black-and-yellow, checker-board-colored sky,
II
It was the moment he turned to ask her,
Their clothes were scattered throughout the parlor,
It was late night and a view of lower Manhattan lights,
The buildings, street lamps and bridges burned,
Out of the window the illumination, awesome,
Out the window view from
The twenty-fifth floor of the high rise,
He asked how it had been for her,
Corporal wondered because they had never left
The front room couch and the sadness of reentry,
Earth’s gravity began to exert its heavy hold.
And she, adopting chapter and verse from
The good Doctor Leary’s work, replied, she replied,
“A thousand times better, it was!”
“A thousand times better?” Corporal queried.
III
Their clothes were scattered throughout the parlor,
Corporal flashed in Technicolor,
A motion picture screen,
It occupied the theater before his eyes,
The hall was vast with long-drawn aisles and fretted vault,
Chandeliers floated down from the top,
In front, the architecture sported
A long, flat-board stage, with a trough for footlights,
And giant, velvet curtains draped to each side,
Over its edge, an orchestra pit.
Everywhere ornate blocks,
And floral, leafy rosettes in high relief
Accented the luxury, and as this scene unfolded
Corporal saw another time, another place,
A vision, long-ago, workman studios,
Industry beyond narrow focus of bottom line,
He lamented how terrible the cost of greed,
That new notions, corporate priority had replaced
The love and regard for hand-made things;
His mind ran as freight train from town to town,
And when it slowed to heed the road level crossings,
Corporal saddened over depopulated stores,
The thought occurred whether big-box merchants
Had subjugated America, and reduced its people’s
Force of labor down to the stacking of shelves.
Corporal refocused his vision and saw
In the theater upon the walls fluted columns,
They rose to the ceiling and framed between them,
There were paintings, pictures of deep woods,
These painted forest scenes opened upon coves
And secret, manicured gardens whose waters reflected
Amorous gods, gods at sport,
They made love with mythical creatures.
And, then, in the instance when
His eyes returned to the drama,
The show that ran upon on the screen,
At first he thought, Popeye,
But no, no Olive Oyl, was there,
Instead he saw a white-hot blond,
With long, curly tresses, bouncing from her shoulders,
-- Remember these were full action figures --
Then he realized the cartoon characters, which played,
They were he and she,
They were locked within impossible embrace.
Corporal heard the musical score, wham bam,
He checked, he reached around his torso,
Touched his back,
He had to feel with his fingers,
Otherwise how could he have know,
Did the joints of his spine still stay in place?
He wondered whether contortionists on view,
A dream, or was it third-person glimpse,
The camera’s true capture, the hours’ previous delight,
Now projected with vivid light, on the screen,
Oh, the animation and color before him!
IV
He mulled it over, he was trying to discern,
What was real, what was not?
And then he fell to warm, all-over, pleasant body heat.
And heard what he knew was voice of the Lord.
“Eagle, Eagle arise… Why sleep now?”
“It is dawn, and eat and drink,
“And all the eagles wait to watch you.”
“Lord, Lord,” Corporal whispered,
“All that You have put upon me,
“I know these things are good.
“Haven’t I been promised them since youth?"
And she, her face no more than an inch away from his,
She sighed and responded, again, to his erstwhile query,
“It was a thousand times better!” She said.
Corporal ran, he ran, breakneck, towards the horizon.
It was late night and a view of lower Manhattan lights,
The buildings, street lamps and bridges burned,
Out of the window the illumination, awesome,
Out the window view from
The twenty-fifth floor of the high rise.
